Nimble Expands to the Frozen Tundra of Chicago

September 16, 2015

By Keegan Riley – VP Sales – Central US

In February last year, I made the professionally brilliant but personally questionable decision to relocate my family from the paradise that is Southern California to the frozen tundra that is Chicago. Out of blind ambition, I was trading my USC football season tickets, the camaraderie of friends and family, a 65-degree average temperature in February, and close proximity to world-class beaches, for a completely new locale where the average low in February is 14 degrees below freezing.

But I was fired up when I moved here, because I knew Nimble’s technology was hands-down the best in the industry, I knew some of the great people we’d hired here, and mostly, I knew that it would get warmer in a few months.

The rationale behind that move became clear this week as Nimble Storage launched its new Chicago office, which will serve as our new Central regional headquarters. This site will enable us to better serve our local customers and partners in Chicago, fuel our continued growth into the enterprise segment, serve as a central meeting place for all Nimble teammates across the country as we host national meetings and partner visits in Chicago, and drive collaboration amongst our team.

With 17 employees and hundreds of channel partner teammates in the Chicago area, we’ve reached that critical mass where great things start to happen through water-cooler collaboration. To foster that innovation and make the effort to build deeper, more meaningful relationships with one another, we decided to invest in the growing technology ecosystem in downtown Chicago. The World Business Chicago initiative, chaired by Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanual, is working to create jobs, cultivate talent, and put Chicago at the forefront of the global economy, and Nimble Storage is excited to be a part of that.

We’ll be hanging our green hat at 500 West Madison, in an open, airy space with no closed office doors (we don’t believe in offices at Nimble; even our CEO sits in a cube). We’ve got plenty of hotel space for our partners to come touch down, and conference rooms available for private customer meetings. In true Chicago style, we’ve named those rooms after famous local comedians. Meet me in Belushi in five!

The building itself is awesome – with 21 restaurants, tons of retail, tenant lounges and conference spaces, a huge gym (which I plan to join to make myself feel good, and then never visit), and the west loop’s only indoor basketball court. Perhaps best of all, we are on top of the Ogilvie Transportation Center, so our customers, partners, and employees can come to the office via public transit, without ever venturing outside. That’s a perk that has even this weather-spoiled SoCal transplant excited about coming in to the office this winter!

The new office was formally opened last night with a partner reception hosted by the local sales teams, along with Nimble CEO Suresh Vasudevan, CFO Anup Singh, and VP of WW Channels Leonard Iventosch. Our doors are now open to all of our channel partners, ecosystem friends, customers, and prospects. Stop in and say hello. Winter may be coming, but things are just starting to heat up at Nimble Central!